7 ms·
Housing doesn’t have to be a commodity at all. It can easily be an unconditional human right.
by drb91 8y ago
Housing doesn’t have to be a commodity at all. It can easily be an unconditional human right.
- max76 8y agoIs there a practical example of a housing not being a commodity that results in favorable housing conditions?
- drb91 8y agoI do not, but I know for sure commodifying housing doesn’t create favorable housing conditions.
- closeparen 8y agoSo if we look at places in the US with more favorable housing conditions, we should find housing allocation done primarily by the state?
- drb91 8y agoWhere do you claim there are favorable conditions? As far as I am aware the homeless are everywhere; some places are simply impossible to live without shelter due to exposure.
- closeparen 8y agoHousing affordability and degree of government involvement are both on a spectrum; you don't need extremes to see if there is a relationship or which way it runs.
- drb91 8y agoAffordable housing is code for unaffordable housing. Otherwise it'd just be housing. You're very correct it's on a spectrum—we're between being entirely homeless and entirely housed. Only one end of that spectrum is acceptable. Housing should be free to use (obviously not free to build and maintain). Everyone needs it, and we all have incentive to reduce costs—except landlords.
- closeparen 8y ago>Only one end of that spectrum is acceptable Which makes it all the more important that you correctly identify and apply the mechanisms that push a place towards one end or the other. >Everyone needs it, and we all have incentive to reduce costs—except landlords. 64% of housing units are owner-occupied [0]. These households are not landlords, yet they are incentivized to raise property values. [0] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/VET605217 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/VET605217
- drb91 8y agoRight, so the market is what makes housing unaffordable. Making housing a guaranteed human right will make it entirely affordable—at least on the end of using it. Housing is entirely a cost that should be amortized over those able to afford and/or build it.
- tehjoker 8y agoIn socialist countries. In the Soviet Union, rent was 2% of take home pay. Many of these countries started out poor, so the housing quality may have been commeasurate with the development of the country. In the US, as a material issue, we could easily provide decent affordable housing to everyone by destroying the market and having the public march in and build. One system that is being tried in some region in China is you buy your house from the government and sell it back. This keeps things democratic and market free. Landlords should be cast into the dustbin of history.
- drb91 8y agoWe have, I believe, about 3x the empty units as we have homeless people in this country. Sure there are distribution issues, but it’s a matter of political will.
- Camillo 8y agoPolitical will to redistribute the people? You must know that that's how it worked/works in socialist countries. You still need a permit in China to move to another city, AFAIK.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Dylan16807 8y agoPeople will move if you offer them somewhere to live. What's needed is political will to use the housing and make the offer.
- k3nt0456 8y agoSingapore is the closest success story I can think of. Requirements: - be a citizen - get married The government will then build a flat for you and hand you the keys 5 years later for about a fourth of the private market price. Of course you need an economy that can pay for all this, so it won't be universally applicable
- closeparen 8y agoWhat do you do while unmarried or in the first 5 years?
- CydeWeys 8y agoYou continue living with your family.
- closeparen 8y agoYou conduct your relationships and the first few years of your marriage within earshot of your parents?
- apexalpha 8y agoThe alternative is a market based housing market such as another city state has: Hong Kong. I think everyone in Hong Kong would happily live with their parents for 5 years if it means they can buy their own flat afterwards.
- drb91 8y agoThis seems cultural, and before the invention of privacy this was the norm. EDIT: I thought that was a meme and it's not—i'm referring to the growth of the middle class and multi-room houses.
- CydeWeys 8y agoThat's how the rest of the world does it, so, yes? Also note that pre-marital relationships are often not very common.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- stale2002 8y agoOr we could just allow people to rent? Renting is awesome!
- drb91 8y agoI don’t like the homeless outside my window, so I’ll pass on this opportunity to give all my money to someone who does jack shit for my life.
- stale2002 8y agoOk, and why do you want to take away my right to rent a house? Why do you want to force me to buy a house? I don't want to do that. I want to rent one.
- forrestthewoods 8y ago> Housing doesn’t have to be a commodity at all. It can easily be an unconditional human right. An unconditional human right... where? Does everyone have a right to housing in the uber popular San Francisco? Does everyone have a right to beachfront property in Hawaii? Or if you don't have a house are you provided one in North Dakota? More people want to live in San Francisco than there are houses. There's going to be winners and losers. I would love to radically increase the number of immigrants we let into the country. Where do they have a right to housing? If that housing doesn't exist who is obligated to build it to give away?
- drb91 8y agoWell the answer is to build more housing, and companies should start elsewhere if there isn’t the housing or talent in the area. Maybe I could move out of SF then...
- wpietri 8y agoWe have these sorts of discussion for any positive right. If people have a right to food, what kind of food? If people have a right to medical care, what kind and how much? If people have a right to education, what does that mean in practice? We also have similar discussions around many negative rights. E.g., in the US 4th Amendment rights are subject to all sorts of practical limitations. That rights are complicated to implement doesn't mean that they shoudn't be rights.
- drb91 8y agoFurthermore I hypothesize people would be motivated by bad conditions to either collectively invest in better housing or to move to where there is housing. This just removes wealth from that equation.
- pascalxus 8y agoI agree with the notion that every human being should have a fundamental right to shelter. Maybe not in the location of their choosing, but somewhere on this d* planet there really ought to be a place where they can be. The solution is, to give a plot of land to every human being that turns 18. there's enough land to do this. In most cases they wont want to live exactly in that spot. but, they can sell it or rent it out and use that money to move somewhere else. That's right folks, this is one of those situations where we can actually create wealth out of thin air, just by using up all that land that's been locked up for so long.
- dredmorbius 8y agoBy what mechanism will that be accomplished?
- drb91 8y agoElectoralism, ideally. Traditionally, removing landlords has been very violent, and I would like to avoid that. The US guarantees market value for eminent domain, which is a sweet deal compared to, say, what’s happening in Berlin right now.
- dredmorbius 8y agoI'm not familiar with the term.
- drb91 8y agoIt generally means working for change through elections both through electing representatives and plebiscites.
- dredmorbius 8y agoThe tendency of existing property-asset-wealth-power dynamics makes this at best difficult. See e.g., California Prop. 13. Wedging that initiative is a very uphill battle.
- drb91 8y agoAgreed.
- dredmorbius 8y agoI wouldn't mind seeing the change, to be clear. Engineering it is the problem.
- hsitz 8y ago>Housing doesn’t have to be a commodity at all. It can easily be an unconditional human right. I don't think you know what a commodity is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity In fact, I think it would make more sense to say, "As a practical matter, housing could only be made available as an unconditional human right if there is [at least a subset of all] housing which IS a commodity." In strictest terms, real estate can never be a commodity because it is all unique. Commodities have to have "full or substantial fungibility", which can't exist when housing occupies a fixed physical location, which is unique. (So perhaps some housing could be a "commodity" even in a strict sense if it could be moved around. . . Think mobile homes.)
- drb91 8y agoSome people are picky about which brand of bottled water to buy, but people still have a right to water.